The Killing of Regulus Black
by Pasi
Summary: Severus Snape found refuge with the Order of the Phoenix. Regulus Black did not. Complete in six chapters.
1. Chapter One

**Chapter One**

That was the hell of it, wasn't it, Alastor Moody thought. The sky was blue, the grass was green, the lilacs scented the air, the goddamn birds sang their stupid heads off and the tombstones gleamed like clean bones in the bright sun of a May morning. You couldn't have asked for a prettier day to watch Angelica McMahan throw the first shovelful of dirt on Andrew McMahan's coffin, newly-laid in its grave.

If that was what you wanted to watch.

Her duty done, Angelica McMahan carefully handed the shovel to the sexton. Then, just as carefully she backed away from her husband's grave, never taking her eyes off it until she was standing next to Lily Potter.

Members of the same sisterhood now. Lily, showing her pregnancy, was a little further down the road they both traveled. How many months along was Lily now, seven? What did Moody know about these things? All he knew was it was only a month ago when he'd seen young Potter in the staff office, laughing and clapping a flushed Andy McMahan on the shoulder.

_"Congratulations, Dad. Take it from one who knows: the good times are, as of now, officially over." _

Yeah, Moody thought, looking at the gravediggers finishing the job Angelica McMahan had begun. They sure were.

Lily folded Angelica into her arms. Sagging slightly, Angelica wept on her friend's shoulder. At Angelica's side stood McMahan's parents, looking stunned. At Lily's side, looking just as stunned, stood James Potter.

The rest of McMahan's and Angelica's families were there. James's parents had put in an appearance. Harold Potter was pale, grim and silent. Madeleine Potter's eyes flickered to her son from time to time, when James wasn't looking. Then to McMahan's grave. And back to James Potter.

Like a pair of some kind of weird, jittery birds, Moody thought.

He heard keening. His eyes jerked around, seeking the source of the sound. It was Angelica McMahan.

"It wasn't because he was an Auror! It was because he was one of you! The Death Eaters killed my husband because he'd joined your Order--!"

She'd lifted her head from Lily's shoulder and had her eyes fixed on James Potter. He stared back at her, his face white and, except for the twitching of a tiny muscle in his jaw, absolutely still.

And he was silent, the fool. Moody tried to catch James's eye. _Shut her up, for Merlin's sake!_ he thought furiously at him. Maybe the grave was a fine and private place, but graveyards were open to the public. Anybody could be getting an earful of what Angelica McMahan had to say.

Madeleine Potter stepped into the breach, thank the Light. Her arms encircled Angelica's shoulders. She spoke soothingly, but loud enough to drown out Angelica's words "--There, there, my dear--" and persistently, until the poor girl, losing a train of thought she'd never had a firm hold on to begin with, dissolved into sobs.

That did it for Moody. He'd said his farewells to Andrew McMahan. Time to say the last empty words of sympathy to Angelica McMahan and get the hell back to work. Time to find out who of Voldy's lot had dumped McMahan in Knockturn Alley and left the Dark Mark floating over his torture-wracked corpse. Who had murdered another Auror of Moody's Special Criminal Investigations Unit, another member of Dumbledore's Order of the Phoenix, another kid who never made it to the quarter-century mark of his life.

"I think you'd do well to leave Angelica McMahan in peace, Alastor. Madeleine's got her well in hand."

Moody turned at the sound of Albus Dumbledore's quiet voice. "You're here," he said.

"I've been here," Dumbledore answered.

"I didn't see you."

"I didn't wish to be seen."

Moody thought of Angelica's likely opinion of Dumbledore and his Order. "Yeah, I'll bet."

Dumbledore's voice fell even lower. "I didn't wish by my presence to remind Angelica McMahan how very right she is. That her husband would probably be alive today if he had not been a member of the Order."

"Yeah," muttered Moody. "If you and I hadn't been fools enough to think he could infiltrate the Death Eaters."

Heavy silence hung between them for a moment. "You will come with me to the Leaky Cauldron for lunch, Alastor," Dumbledore said.

"I was heading back to the office."

"I may have found someone who can do for us what Andrew could not. I want you to meet him."

Moody looked at him. "Have you thought we might be wrong to believe we could get one of our people close enough to Voldemort to do us any good? Has it occurred to you, maybe, that we ought to give it up?"

"No." The old sinner's eyes twinkled for a moment. "So I know you will agree I could profit from your balanced viewpoint. And your judgement," he added soberly. "I find this man rather hard to read. Which could be a good thing."

"Or a bad thing," Moody said.

"Indeed." Dumbledore took Moody's arm. "Come, Alastor, before we're seen."

Moody looked around. They were being ignored for the moment. But flowers covered McMahan's filled-in grave and the funeral party was beginning to break up.

"I'm sure this won't take more than an hour," Dumbledore said.

"All right." Moody allowed Dumbledore to lead him in the opposite direction, into a copse of trees that hid them from the rest of the mourners. There, with two soft _pops!_, they Disapparated.


	2. Chapter Two

**Chapter Two**

Moody and Dumbledore Apparated behind two overflowing and odoriferous garbage cans in an alley next to a pizza restaurant. They slipped from the alley into the Charing Cross Road, blending with a crowd so hurried and diverse that two wizards in dark gray mourning robes did not draw a second glance.

Moody kept his voice down nevertheless. "So who's this fellow you've found who can do what McMahan couldn't? When McMahan was the best Occlumens in Law Enforcement?"

"He is an Apothecary at St. Mungo's Hospital. And, I will venture to suggest, he is an even better Occlumens than Andrew McMahan was."

"There wasn't any better than Andrew McMahan," Moody retorted. "Except maybe you."

"Ah," Dumbledore said softly. "I may have met my match in the art of Occlumency, Alastor. And possibly my master. But here we are." The Leaky Cauldron loomed suddenly out at them, between the book shop and the record store. "You shall soon meet him yourself."

Moody and Dumbledore turned in to the Leaky Cauldron. Moody blinked at the contrast between the bustling, sunwashed street outside and the dusky quiet within. Dustmotes floated on the sunbeams that slanted through the narrow windows. One young wizard lazily levitated darts, one after another, arching them through the air toward a dartboard fastened on the wall. The few other patrons of the pub looked up from plates of sandwiches and mugs of butterbeer when the door opened, but then returned their attention to their lunches without showing further interest in the newcomers.

Dumbledore approached the bar with Moody right behind him. The proprietor looked up from the firewhiskey glasses he was polishing.

"Ah, Professor, there you are. I've reserved a parlor for you. To the right, behind the bar."

"Thank you, Tom. And the gentleman I told you about--?"

"He's here, waiting for you. Come a bit early, actually."

"Good, good!"

Dumbledore led, again, into the parlor, gesturing Moody inside and closing the door behind him. Moody, squinting into a gloom even denser than that of the bar and dining room, made out a dark figure standing before the fireplace. The figure turned, and Moody saw it was a man: a sallow-faced, stringy-haired and -bodied young man with intense black eyes.

"Severus. Good of you to come." Dumbledore inclined his head politely. The old wizard could be positively courtly, Moody knew, when he wished. Especially when he wanted something from you. Or, better yet, when he knew he'd got it.

The young fellow nodded back, with a jerky, clumsy motion of his head. Then his eyes darted to Moody.

"Alastor, this is the Apothecary I told you about," Dumbledore went on in his mildest, easiest tone. "Master Potioner Severus Snape. Severus, this is Alastor Moody, Chief of Criminal Investigations in the Department of Magical Law Enforcement."

Snape hesitantly stretched out one of his skinny hands and Moody took it. It felt like a dead fish, and he released it as soon as he decently could.

They sat down at a wooden table on one side of the hearth and helped themselves to the sandwiches and beer which were set there. Dumbledore ate and drank heartily. But Snape, Moody noticed, didn't seem to have any more appetite than he himself did.

"Master Snape," Moody said presently. "Potioner and Apothecary at St. Mungo's Hospital. I suppose Professor Dumbledore has told you why I'm here?"

Snape swallowed hard. "Yes."

"You know about the--" Moody glanced at Dumbledore, who nodded almost imperceptibly. "All right, then. You know about the Order of the Phoenix? The Headmaster's told you about Andrew McMahan?"

"I know about the Order." Snape spoke in a quiet monotone. Not much life to him, it seemed. "And I was acquainted with Andrew McMahan."

Moody's brows shot up. "Were you, now?"

"I met him briefly last winter. While I was working in Azkaban, on a project for the Ministry."

"The Dementor business, Alastor," Dumbledore put in.

_"That_ project," Moody said. "So what was your part in it?"

"To formulate a potion which would increase the susceptibility of Death Eater inmates to Dementors."

Moody waited, but Snape did not elaborate. "Long story short, eh?" He looked at Dumbledore. "Still don't see what it's got to do with us, Albus."

"You resigned from the project, did you not, Master Snape?" Dumbledore asked.

"Yes. I found it--morally repugnant."

"Did you? Don't know, myself, that the Death Eaters are getting any worse in Azkaban than they gave out to their victims," Moody said. "Reckon you have to be a good Potioner, though. Wasn't every Tom, Dick and Harry Barty Crouch assigned to his pet project. Congratulations. But I don't need a Potioner."

"No, we don't," Dumbledore said. "Potioning is how Severus earns his living. We need him for his other talent. And for his connections."

"Albus tells me your other talent's in Occlumency."

"I am an Occlumens."

Odd how the gentle firelight, so kind as to put roses even in Dumbledore's old cheeks, did nothing for Snape. He was as pale as a parchment.

"And your connections?" Moody asked.

Snape didn't answer at once. Maybe he felt Dumbledore's suddenly intent stare. He didn't meet it, though.

"I am--I _was_--a Death Eater," Snape said.

For several moments, there was no sound in the room but Snape's hard, short breaths and the crackling of the fire in the hearth. Then, the legs of Moody's chair scraped loudly over the floor as he slowly stood up. He placed his palms flat on the surface of the table and leaned over it until his face was inches from Snape's.

_"What did you say?"_

Snape didn't flinch, as many a seasoned Auror would have done. The Potioner simply eyed Moody.

"I believe you heard me, Chief."

Snape was one ugly git. That was saying something, coming from Moody, who knew ugly, who saw ugly every morning when he looked in the mirror. But the man had a beautiful voice, like the sound of a woman's hand smoothing a silk robe.

"Let me see it," Moody said.

Snape knew what he meant. His hand went immediately to his left wrist. But it took a while. Under his robes, he was dressed up like a Victorian clergyman. He had to unbutton the sleeves to a frock coat and a shirt under that before he could roll them and his robe sleeve above his elbow.

Wise of him, actually, Moody thought. Nobody was going to see that Dark Mark by accident.

"Sit down, Alastor," Dumbledore said. "Let me pour you another butterbeer."

Moody obeyed. He sipped slowly, deliberately at his beer while Snape, just as slowly and just as deliberately, rolled his sleeves back down and refastened all his fussy little buttons.

Moody's beer was half-drunk when he set his glass back down on the table with a firm _clack!_

"You said you _were_ a Death Eater."

"That is correct," Snape said. "I am one no longer."

"And have you been disaffected for a while? Or did you just wake up this morning, change allegiances and pay Professor Dumbledore a call, all before breakfast?"

Red splotches appeared in Snape's paper-white cheeks. "I mulled over my choices for some time, naturally--"

"Liar!" snarled Moody. "You want to know what I hate, Snape? A Death Eater who thinks he can walk free. And you want to know what I rather like? The thought of the Dementors in Azkaban, giving you lot a taste of your own medicine. Mind you, I didn't like it at first. Even fought against it. But that was before five Death Eaters ganged up on the Prewett brothers. That was before a couple more invaded the McKinnons' home and killed Marlene, her husband _and _their five-year-old twin boys. Before who knows how many of you--or maybe Voldemort himself--tortured Andrew McMahan to death."

Snape flinched at the sound of Voldemort's name. Then he said: "It was the Dark Lord himself who did it."

That got a rise out of Dumbledore, when nothing else had done. His jaw dropped and his eyes widened when he turned to Snape. "Severus! You went back to him _after--?"_

"After I spoke to you, yes, Headmaster. I had to. He called all of us through the Mark, to witness the initiation of an Auror." Snape looked at Moody. "And not just any Auror, Chief. One of yours, a member of your Special Unit. The Lord was very proud he'd turned Andrew McMahan."

Moody brought his fist down on the table. The cutlery tinkled and the glasses jumped. "You see, Albus? He's lying! If nothing else, he could _never_ have gone back to Voldemort after talking to you, he could _never_ have faced Voldemort with that in his heart! Voldemort would have seen it! He'd have fried this lying son of a goblin and eaten him for lunch!"

"But he _didn't!"_ said Dumbledore. And, far from being dismayed, he seemed delighted. "You went back to him, Severus, _after_ you had spoken to me?"

"Yes."

"_After_ you had confessed to me. _After_ you had repented what you had done in the Dark Lord's service and returned to the side of the Light. _After_ I had accepted you into my service. You returned to Voldemort. You took part in an Initiation Ceremony. You ate Voldemort's death. You took his power. You did all that, and what you had hidden in your heart--_remained hidden."_

"Yes, Headmaster," Snape said. Only now he was looking at neither Moody nor Dumbledore. He was staring down at his plate, at the sandwich out of which he'd taken only a few bites.

"So," Moody said. "I think I know what you're saying, Albus. He's sitting here in front of us with a nice, big black lump of Voldemort's death in him and another nice, big red lump of Voldemort's power--because you can't take Voldemort's mortality away from him and put it into yourself unless you take his power along with it. Or else _you'll_ die. And even Voldy won't get far by killing all his slaves."

"Correct, so far," Dumbledore said.

"And you think he's Merlin's gift because he's got what Andy McMahan couldn't take: the Dark Mark."

"Pretty much so, yes," Dumbledore said.

Moody tossed his head contemptuously toward Snape. "He's branded like the rest of Voldemort's slaves. He ate Voldemort's death. So how do you know he's not playing a double game? How do you know he's not here for Voldemort, spying on _us?_"

"Because, to paraphrase a rather famous Muggle work, a light shone in the darkness, and the darkness comprehended it not. Death is obscurity itself, but it bides its time and it knows its place. My death does not obscure my sight and will not until the day it consumes me. And I do not blind myself, by trying to give my death, which belongs solely and uniquely to me, away to others, as Tom tries to do. I can see around the death of Voldemort which lies in Severus Snape's magical heart, because it is nothing of mine, it has nothing whatsoever to do with me. I can see around it and through it. I see the whole of Severus's magical heart, I see all of the man himself. And that Tom can never do, even though he is as much a Magical Examiner as I am. Because Tom's death, inside Severus Snape's magical heart, obscures Tom's magical sight. And so he does not see all of Severus Snape. My guess is he sees very little. And nothing at all of what Severus truly wishes to hide from him."

Moody glanced at Snape. The unprepossessing subject of their philosophical discussion was staring at his sandwich again.

"So what you're saying is, because McMahan didn't have Voldemort's death in him--because he couldn't take it into his magical heart--Voldemort saw through him. Knew he was pretending to want to join him. Knew McMahan's true intention was to infiltrate the Death Eaters as a spy for the Order of the Phoenix."

"Close enough. It's true there was none of Tom's death in Andrew McMahan. Nothing to obscure Tom's magical sight."

"So he tortured Andrew McMahan to death," Moody said. He looked at Snape, whose face was half-hidden behind a veil of greasy hair. "So, Snape. Did you watch?"

Snape lifted his head. "I've done torture," he said. "Why shouldn't I watch it?"

"Oh, really?" Moody said softly. "And might I ask whom you tortured? Or does a gentleman never tell?"

"The MacGregors."

Moody stared. Sylvia and Mellitus MacGregor. Aurors, once. Now residents of the Janus Thickey Long-Term Ward at St. Mungo's Hospital. Permanent residents, permanently insane.

"You make me sick," Moody said.

"Is that so?" said Snape. "While McMahan settled your stomach, I suppose. And died a miserable failure. What good did that do you or your Order?"

"No!" Dumbledore cried, for Moody's wand was out before Snape had finished. Its tip trembled and sparked as he fought the urge to rearrange Snape's ugly face.

"Put it _back_, Alastor."

Slowly Moody slid the wand back into his sleeve. "All right, then." He spoke to Dumbledore, but, his vision grayed with rage, he stared at Snape. "I'm going to be charitable. I'm going to assume that, after sucking down Voldemort's death, this whore is still stuffed to the gills with Voldemort's power. And that's why he can't keep a civil tongue in his head."

"Don't say the Dark Lord's name!" Snape said.

"Enough, both of you!" Dumbledore snapped. "No, Alastor. I have not had an opportunity to remove Voldemort's power from Severus's heart." _He_ could say the name, Moody noticed. But then, nobody, including mangy Potioners, told Dumbledore whom he could and couldn't name.

"I thought it more important for us to meet you first," Dumbledore continued. "Our next stop is St. Mungo's. I will remove the power there."

"Lucky you."

"Lucky _him," _Dumbledore retorted. "The excision of unabsorbed foreign power is quite painful."

Moody wasn't displeased to hear that. Nor was it in any way unsatisfying to see the fear flitting across Snape's features.

An odd, furtive defiance replaced it. "I am the only one who can get close enough to the Lord and his Death Eaters to spy on them for you. Anyone else you'd send would die as McMahan did, because no one else you'd send would be able to take the Mark. As I have done."

Snape stopped.

"And why is that, Severus?" Dumbledore urged gently. "For one must have the Mark in order to eat Tom's death and receive his power. Didn't you tell me so?"

"Yes," Snape said. His voice had fallen so low Moody could hardly hear him. "In order to take the Lord's Mark at Initiation, one must love him."

"And you...." Moody's voice trailed off. He couldn't finish the question.

"I love him," Snape said softly.

Moody couldn't rouse himself to anger. Snape's revelation, like a blow to the gut, had knocked the wind out of him. He could only stare, speechless, at the scrawny, greasy, entirely unremarkable-looking Potioner.

"Severus has a true two-chambered magical heart," Dumbledore said. "In one chamber is enshrined his love for Lord Voldemort. There also he hides Voldemort's power and Voldemort's death. In the second, entirely separate chamber, shrouded in the magic of Occlumency, Severus cherishes his love for his mother, Madame Serafina Snape. And lately I've been privileged to notice in that second chamber a growing esteem for me."

"Well, aren't you in good company?" Moody said. "Voldemort and this chap's moth--"

"Shut your filthy mouth!" Snape spat. His face had turned a nasty brick-red color, like that of a man on the brink of an apoplectic fit. "As if you were perfect; as if any of you were perfect! Who was it who sent McMahan to the Lord, who led him to believe he could actually deceive the Dark Lord? And why did he think he could sham the love he needed to take the Lord's Mark?"

"So Andrew got that far into the Initiation?" Dumbledore asked quietly. "Tom actually tried to Mark him?"

Snape did not answer at once. Moody watched light from the fire and shadows stretching out from the corners of the room sweep over his face. "The Dark Lord tried to lay his Sign into McMahan's skin," he said at last. "And when the Lord saw that the burning of his hand was not ecstasy, as it should have been, but torment--he did not let go of McMahan's arm until McMahan was dead."

The image flared again in Moody's mind: McMahan's battered body, dumped in a filthy crevice of Knockturn Alley, lit by the lurid green of the Dark Mark floating above.

"How long did it take?' he whispered.

"An hour."

_"An hour?"_

"I believe so. I didn't check my watch."

It had taken less time to put that broken body in the ground. And Moody had cursed his poor stump of a leg--had thought himself quite ill-used by fate--when that stump, inside his wooden leg, had ached after standing through Andrew McMahan's funeral service.

"You didn't check your watch," Moody repeated. "Too enthralled, were you? McMahan's death was too good a show?"

Snape did not answer. Nor did his expression change.

"I don't care how many hearts you have or how good an Occlumens you are. You oughtn't to be allowed to foul the Order by joining it. You belong in Azkaban."

"Better men than I have died there," Snape said. "But the Head of your Order believes I would be of more use working under him."

"It's true, Alastor," Dumbledore said, before Moody could spit out the obscenity on the tip of his tongue. "Severus is the only person I have ever known who could hide his heart from Tom."

"So we should reward him for it? He's a Dark Wizard, a torturer, a murderer for all we know--but we should just let that pass?"

"I've _never_ killed!" Snape said.

"He has _never_ killed," Dumbledore said with quiet assurance. "As for rewarding him--think again, Alastor. As the price of our acceptance and protection, I am asking Severus to betray one of the two people he loves best. I don't call that a reward. I call it punishment. Which seems to be what you're looking for."

"Spot on," said Moody. He turned to Snape. "Right, then. I'm not going to ask why you love Voldemort. That's a conversation for another day. I want to know why, if you love him, you can betray him. If _he_ shouldn't trust you, why should I?"

The question seemed to terrify Snape. Moody saw that in the quailing glance he gave Dumbledore. Dumbledore looked back at him impassively, implacably.

The Headmaster could be cruel sometimes, Moody thought.

Snape averted his eyes. Then, reluctantly, he lifted them to Moody. "I love him. But I can't serve him. I have to find some way not to serve him. He wants to rule the whole world, to make the whole world eat his death, so that he will live forever." He stopped, as if he knew how bizarre that sounded. But he didn't try to take it back. "It's evil. He's evil. I can't live with it any longer. I can't live with myself."

No one said anything after that for a couple of minutes. With a loud crack and a plume of sparks, a large log in the fireplace split apart. There was no other sound until Dumbledore spoke again.

"I trust Severus Snape." Dumbledore spoke to Moody, but, with the heart-piercing gaze of an Examiner, he looked at Snape. And, to give credit where credit was due, the fellow held up under it pretty well. "He has explained his motives to me, and I find them acceptable." Dumbledore broke off and turned to Moody. "He has accepted the requirements I will make of him. Every fortnight he will report what he has learned in his dealings with the Dark Lord and the Death Eaters to you and me. He must never kill, no matter what the consequences to himself of his refusal to do so. He must avoid casting the other Unforgivable Curses. If he must cast one, in order to preserve his cover and his life, he must mitigate its effects as much as he can. And he must report and justify to us each use he makes of an Unforgivable Curse."

"And his reasons better be good," Moody said softly, looking at Snape.

Snape looked back, cool as ice. "They will be."

"Yes, Severus, they will," Dumbledore said. "Because you know that each use of an Unforgivable Curse darkens the power of your magical heart, so that it more resembles Tom's heart. Each Unforgivable Curse you cast makes you more like Tom."

Moody had to admit he relished the sight of that deep, cold fear settling in Snape's eyes. Though you had to feel sorry for the son of a goblin, too. He might not want to live with himself. But that was exactly what he was doomed to do.

Dumbledore rose. "Well, then. I think we all understand each other. Severus, I'll be attending the Conference of Magical Examiners at St. Mungo's next week, and I'll be staying on afterward for a few days to consult with Constance Meed. Wait for me to contact you then. We'll firm up the schedule of times and locations for your reports."

Constance Meed was Chief Magical Medical Examiner at St. Mungo's. Something occurred to Moody when Dumbledore said her name, and he opened his mouth to speak.

Dumbledore spoke first. "Yes, Alastor, I consulted Constance about Severus, too. What I've said to you about his heart is what she has confirmed by her own examination."

The thing was, Moody knew Constance Meed because she was an expert in criminal insanity. But, after another glance at Snape, he decided not to pursue that topic. He shut his mouth instead.

Dumbledore smiled. "You'll have no trouble making the next meeting of the Order, Alastor?"

"Oh, no, Headmaster, none at all."

"Good. I'd like to speak to you privately afterward."

"Right," Moody said. He waited for the other two men to precede him down the stairs and out into the Charing Cross Road. It was just an old Auror's habit he had, to bring up the rear, so nobody was behind his back and out of his sight, because how else was he to know what they were up to? He didn't have eyes in the back of his head, did he?


	3. Chapter Three

**Chapter Three**

James Potter had the night off, and he didn't have many of those. The sofa and the novel waited for him in the sitting room. But, butterbeer in hand, he'd made a detour on his way from the kitchen into the nursery.

The nursery was quiet and dark, filled with expectancy, waiting for its occupant-to-be. He looked at the centerpiece of the room, the cradle Lily's father had made with Muggle magic: with a few simple tools in his skilled hands. Inside the cradle was a tiny mattress, covered neatly with a tiny white sheet. Soon a tiny human being would be lying there, looking back at him.

The doorbell rang.

The first move James made was to the inner pocket of his robe, to reassure himself that his wand was there. Auror's reflexes. They served him as well in the Order of the Phoenix as they had in the Department of Magical Law Enforcement.

The second thing he did was set his beer bottle down on the changing table. Why not? It was the twenty-third of May, two months, according to Lily's midwife, before anybody was likely to be changed on it.

Then James went to the front door and, after a peek through the window curtain, pulled it open.

"Sirius! Come on in--!"

With a sliding ripple of its features, Sirius's face began to change.

An illusion. Pulling his wand, James jumped backward into the hallway. He was about to slam and ward the door shut when a voice said:

"No, Potter! For Merlin's sake, let me in before somebody sees me!"

Aiming his wand at the screen door, James cautiously stepped forward.

"Regulus?"

The face and form glowing softly in the light of the porch lantern were Regulus Black's. This time, James saw nothing of the shifting and sliding of illusion. But he waved an Apertus Charm in Regulus's direction nevertheless.

The blue-white spell flashed, then faded. Regulus remained Regulus.

"Satisfied?" he whispered.

"Yeah, Regulus," James whispered back. He pushed open the screen door. "Come in."

With a glance over his shoulder into the soft spring night, Regulus scuttled over the threshold.

"Shut the door, will you?" Regulus whispered urgently once he was inside.

James shrugged and did so. "Why are we whispering?" he asked then in a normal voice.

"We don't need to, now," Regulus said aloud. "As long as we're alone." He glanced around the hallway and poked his head into the candlelit sitting room. "We are alone, aren't we?"

"Yes," James said. "Why?"

"Yes. Tonight's Tuesday. On Tuesdays, your wife takes the evening shift in the Accidents and Emergencies Department at St. Mungo's Hospital. On Tuesdays, you stay home. You like to be where she can get hold of you fast. And you know it's unsafe to leave the house untended."

"How would you know?" James said. Even if Sirius still spoke to Regulus, he'd never have told him all that.

Regulus looked at James. His eyes, James thought, were exactly the same color as Sirius's eyes. But James had never seen that odd expression in Sirius's eyes before.

"Look, Potter--James. I can call you James, can't I? And can't we sit down? I need to talk to you."

James felt a jolt of fear. "This isn't about Sirius, is it?"

Regulus blinked in surprise. "Sirius? No. This is about me. And you."

James stared at Regulus, then waved him into the sitting room. "Have a seat. I'll get us a couple of beers."

James got Regulus a fresh bottle of beer from the kitchen and retrieved his own open bottle from the changing table in the nursery. Carrying both butterbeers, he returned to the sitting room.

Regulus was in the chintz armchair next to the couch. James handed him his beer, then sat down on the couch, facing the cold hearth--cold because the night, even for late May, was unusually warm.

James looked from the fireplace to Regulus. "You had something to say to me?"

"I heard you'd given up the Aurors," Regulus said.

Yes. James had resigned from Law Enforcement. When he'd seen firsthand the results of Barty Crouch's new policy of loosing Dementors on the Death Eater prisoners in Azkaban. But Regulus didn't need to know that.

"I couldn't hack the schedule. So I took a job with my Dad."

"The Order of the Phoenix," Regulus said.

Ice crept down James's spine. "What do you mean?"

"We know. Or--_they_ do. I'm not one of them any longer."

"One of whom?"

Regulus looked into the empty hearth, then back again at James. "Reckon there's no easy way to do this, is there?" Half-turned in the chair, he leaned forward and thrust his left arm toward James.

James shrank back into the couch cushions. He was afraid he knew what was coming. Regulus was a Black, wasn't he? James only hoped to Merlin and the Light Sirius didn't--

Regulus pushed up the sleeve of his robe to reveal the Dark Mark, deep and glistening black in the skin of his arm.

James stared. _Please don't let Sirius know._ "Why are you showing me this?" he asked quietly.

"Because you're a member of the Order of the Phoenix."

"Does Sirius know?"

"He should. He's a member, too, isn't he? Look, they know about all of you. That's one thing I need to--"

"No, not that." James lifted his hand and squeezed his eyes shut for a moment. "Does Sirius know you're a Death Eater?"

"God, no! What do you take me for? And look, Potter--James." Regulus's voice took on a wheedling tone. "You don't have to tell him, do you?"

James went limp with relief. Sighing, he rubbed his eyes wearily, then ran his hands through his hair. "Why are you telling _me_?"

"Because you're in the Order, like Sirius is. And you've got connections there, like he hasn't. Like no Black would."

"Connections? What connections?"

Regulus gave a bitter little bark of a laugh. "Come off it, James--!"

"I think I like 'Potter' better," James cut in.

"Fine, then. Potter it is. Well, then. _Potter._ Take Alastor Moody, for starters. You were team leader in his Special Unit for the Dark Arts, in the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. You were the best Auror he had in the Subministry of Criminal Investigations, before you joined the Order. Now you're the best Auror he's got in the Order of the Phoenix.

"And there's Professor Albus Dumbledore. Heads up the Order like he heads up half of everything else in the wizarding world. Like the Wizengamot. Dumbledore's Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot. And Harold Potter--your Dad--is Second Warlock. Nice place to be, when you're one of the links for the Order to the upper echelons of the Ministry. Yeah. Second Warlock'll do."

James stared at him. People might guess that Dumbledore was operating a private and semi-secret organization that fought Voldemort. There were times, James thought, when Dumbledore might want them to guess it. But nobody was supposed to know about Dad.

"The Dark Lord knows every member of the Order," Regulus said quietly. "Every one."

"So I've heard," James said. He remembered Ruskin, the first and only Death Eater he had interrogated in Azkaban, telling him that and precious little else before the Dementors had sucked his soul.

_Every one._ Why shouldn't that include Dad, come to think of it? Why should James Potter's family be safe? Nobody else's was.

"What I haven't heard," James said, "is _how_ he knows."

Regulus gave him the strangest look. "Are you sure that's something you want to hear?" he asked. "There has to be a traitor in your Order. Someone very close to you. Given what the Death Eaters know."

Why should Dad and Mum, why should Lily and the baby be safe?

_"He knows them, Potter,"_ Ruskin had whispered on the day he'd lost his soul. _"And he will kill them. Every one."_

"Who is it?" James said sharply.

"Think they'd tell _me?" _Regulus said. "They haven't. And now they never will. I'm getting out."

"Getting out?"

"Getting out, running away, quitting, whatever you want to call it. I'm leaving the Dark Lord's service."

"You're leaving Voldemort's service?"

_"Don't_ say his name!" Regulus's hand stole to his left arm and nearly touched it before he pulled it away again. "Don't you know it isn't safe!"

"Sorry," James said. "I mean to say, has anybody ever done that before? Quit the Death Eaters?"

"Don't know. But it doesn't seem the kind of outfit where you can just hand in your resignation, does it?" Regulus smiled weakly, as if he'd made a joke. The smile faded at once. "That's why I'm here. You're in the Order. And you're connected. Your father. Moody. Dumbledore. Besides--" Regulus hesitated, looking away for a moment. "Besides, Sirius always said you were the only person in the world he trusted."

"He didn't mean it," James said. "Sirius has plenty of friends."

"Yeah, well, when he said it, he was with his family, not his friends."

James couldn't think of a diplomatic answer to that. So he said nothing.

"Anyway, I'll take Sirius's word for it, that you're trustworthy," Regulus said. "He has a way of scenting out his friends. And his enemies. So I--I was wondering--" he faltered. Then, gathering up his nerve, he plunged ahead. "No, I'm asking. Begging. Please. Talk to Headmaster Dumbledore. Get me your Order's protection. If the Death Eaters--if _He_--if they find out I've run for it, they'll kill me. They'll think I've betrayed them."

"You'll have to, won't you? Betray them, I mean?"

"Yeah, yeah...." Regulus scrubbed his hands over his face. "Reckon so...."

Sirius had done the same thing in Dumbledore's office the morning after Moony had nearly killed Snape. Scrubbed his hands over his face, scrubbed tears out of his eyes....

"Why'd you decide you had to leave, Regulus?" James asked quietly.

"Because I've done murders, all right?" Regulus said in a queer, harsh voice. "And I don't want to do any more. All right?"

"Your first?" James said.

Regulus nodded. His eyes were very bright. Somehow that made him look younger than Sirius by much more than two years.

"You know Marlene McKinnon?" Regulus asked.

A faint nausea settled in the pit of James's stomach. "I'm in the Order. She was in the Order. Yes. I knew her."

"I--I--" Regulus drew a long, trembling breath. He looked at James with a sort of haunted longing. What did he think James could give him? "I--"

"You killed her," James said.

"No. Travers did." Regulus blinked and swept his sleeve across his eyes. "But she had a husband. He ran out from the kitchen while Travers was busy with Marlene in the hallway. I killed him." Regulus stopped. "And there were these two little kids. Boys."

Bill's and Marlene's sons. "I know," James said.

"I killed them. Because Travers was too clumsy to do it right. But I'm good. I'm a Black, aren't I? And, see, the Lord said, leave bodies as well as the Dark Mark. Don't hit them so hard you bring the house down and bury them in dust. Let the Mudblood-lovers see what could happen to _them._

"So you calibrate your curse, you know. A strong Avada Kedavra for the adults. You want to kill them first; you don't want them watching their kids die. Unless, of course, that's what the Lord wants. Because you don't know what they'll do."

Regulus paused, panting for breath. James waited. In the silence, he felt himself shuddering.

"And then a weaker Avada Kedavra for the kids." Regulus stared straight ahead at nothing. "After you pull their dead parents off them. A weaker spell, yeah. But it was too weak." He turned that horrible, empty stare on James's face. "They were still alive. They could still..._feel._ I had to hit them again. Like hitting mice with a broom. Squirmy, squealing little--"

Regulus bowed over his lap, burying his face in his hands. His shoulders shook. His breath came in squeaking, hitching gasps.

James stood up and looked down at him. He supposed Regulus was weeping. He wasn't sure he cared. Marlene McKinnon been one of the most powerful witches he'd ever known, in both the Special Unit and the Order of the Phoenix. He'd known her husband. He'd known her boys, Tim and Mike. Always running, always laughing, always wrestling on the hearthrug. Marlene, who had grown up with brothers, had assured Lily and James it was what they were in for, if they had boys. James, who was an only child, and Lily, who had one sister, had taken her word for it. And had laughed.

He and Lily had done a lot of laughing with the McKinnons. Marlene and Bill had been happy people. Their home had been a happy place.

James looked down at Regulus. And he wondered whether Barty Crouch didn't have the right idea after all. Maybe those Dementor-maddened Death Eaters he'd seen in Azkaban deserved exactly what they'd got.

_No, no!_ James turned away from Regulus and paced in front of the fireplace, running his hand through his hair. You couldn't even _think_ anybody deserved that. Or you ended up with the Dementor-sucked husk of Olaus Ruskin sitting squarely on top of your conscience.

The sound of Regulus's weeping faded into silence. James turned back to him. Regulus still sat slumped, with his elbows braced on his knees.

"Buck up, will you?" James said uncomfortably. "I'll call Chief Moody, all right? He vets all the Order's informants. And it's safe; both his house and his office fireplaces are warded."

Regulus lifted his head. His eyes were wild with terror. "I don't need to be vetted! I need to be protected! You're Harold Potter's son, for God's sake! Can't you put me straight through to Dumbledore?"

James looked at him coldly. "Wouldn't matter if I was Merlin's and Vivien's son. Sorry to be the one to break it to you, Regulus, but the Order of the Phoenix doesn't operate on bloodlines and privilege. Nobody contacts Dumbledore unless Alastor Moody clears him first. Not you. Not me. _Nobody."_

Regulus looked back with Sirius's eyes: deep-set, cloud-gray, fringed with black lashes. He answered after a moment in a calmer voice.

"All right. Call Chief Moody. If he wants to talk to me, I'm here."

The armchair Regulus sat in was out of sight of the fireplace. Maybe that was just as well, James thought as he took the Floo powder down from the mantel. He had to break the news gently to Moody, of the very first Death Eater ever to betray Voldemort, because he had no idea how the eccentric old Auror would take it.


	4. Chapter Four

**Chapter Four**

Squatting before the fireplace, James told Chief Moody what Regulus Black had told him: that Regulus, wishing to leave the Death Eaters, sought protection from the Order of the Phoenix. He kept quiet about the McKinnons, though. Let Regulus tell Moody he'd killed Marlene's husband and children. That was _his _story.

Besides, James didn't feel like putting himself through it again.

Moody heard James out with surprising calm. "Another one, eh?" he muttered cryptically. Then, "Show me."

Regulus must have heard Moody's command, for, coming to squat down beside James, he rolled up his left sleeve and showed Moody the Dark Mark. He did it all with perfect composure, just as if he hadn't been weeping a few minutes before.

Moody eyed him. "You're just like your father, you know that, Black?"

Regulus blinked. "How so?"

"You got the same look he gets when he's defending a Dark wizard in front of the Council of Magical Law." Moody grinned, not entirely pleasantly. "When he knows he's losing the case."

Regulus's face tightened with a touch of defiance. "I'm glad to hear that. I admire my father."

Moody laughed, though not for long. "Let's hope you don't resemble him in _every_ particular," he said. "Your family's in for trouble from me if the lot of you are Death Eaters." Regulus opened his mouth to protest, but Moody cut him off. "First things first. You want the Order's protection, you follow the Order's instructions. And I'm instructing you to go home and stay there until you hear from either Dumbledore or me. You're to talk to nobody, not your friends, not your cousins, not even your Mum and Dad. Tell them you're sick, you're hung over, whatever you want. I don't care. But that's all you tell them. Understand?"

"Yes," Regulus said.

"Good. Run along home, then, before somebody misses you."

James saw Regulus to the door. When he returned, Moody's scarred and frowning face was still looking out from the fireplace.

"He's gone?" Moody said.

"Yes, sir."

"You saw no one else lurking about? And you've put warding spells on the doors and windows?"

"Yes, sir."

"Constant vigilance, Potter. Never forget it. Speaking for myself, I'm not ready to trust young Regulus Black quite yet. So, you're attending the Order meeting tomorrow night?"

"Yes, sir."

"You'll stay after a bit, to speak with Dumbledore and me. I think you'll find it interesting."

"Yes, sir."

_"Yes, sir!" _Moody laughed. "Old habits die hard, eh, Potter?"

After three years under Moody in the Auror Academy and another two under him in Criminal Investigations, yes, James thought as he watched Moody's head fade from the fireplace. Old habits died hard.

"You mean Regulus isn't the only one who's tried to back out?" James asked.

The meeting of the Order had ended. Sirius and Peter had accompanied Lily home. James, seated with Moody and Dumbledore at the kitchen table in the Order's London safe house, had repeated everything Regulus had told him the night before.

Then Professor Dumbledore had told James about another Death Eater who wished to change sides.

James turned to Moody. _"That's_ what you meant!"

"Eh?" Moody said.

"When I told you about Regulus, you said, 'Another one, eh?'"

"Yeah. Regulus Black isn't the first. But, as far as we know, he's only the second."

"Who was first?" James asked.

"That I will not tell you," Dumbledore said. "I can say, however, that he is equipped, as Regulus is not, to serve as my spy in Voldemort's camp. For he is the only wizard I've ever met who could lie to Voldemort."

"Except yourself," Moody put in.

"Except myself, perhaps. But I've never wanted to lie to Tom"

"So Regulus can't go back to Voldemort," James said. "But if he stays away for long, won't Voldemort grow suspicious?"

"He will have to go into magical hiding, " Dumbledore said. "But it takes time to find and ward a hiding-place. To be truly safe, Regulus would have to cast a Fidelius Charm. I think he's powerful enough to do it. But whom would he choose as Secret-Keeper? I doubt he trusts anyone outside the circle of his family and their friends. And whom within that circle can he trust?"

"Sirius, I suppose," James said.

"When he hasn't spoken to Sirius for years?" Dumbledore said.

James looked at him. "There is that," he admitted. He kept forgetting what it was like to be estranged from your family as Sirius was, to loathe them as he did.

But did Regulus still loathe Sirius? James wondered, remembering how Regulus had spoken of Sirius the night before. How he'd pleaded with James not to tell Sirius he'd become a Death Eater.

"He trusts Sirius's judgement, though," James said.

"Then let him choose Sirius, if he trusts him as deeply as the wizard who casts the Fidelius Charm must trust his Secret-Keeper. But it's a decision he can't make without long, hard thought. Which will, again, take time," Dumbledore said.

"Sure, it'll take time," Moody said. "But Regulus is fine if he keeps his mouth shut and does as he's told. The Death Eaters won't dare to walk into Grimmauld Place and snatch him out from under the noses of his Mum and Dad."

"Not yet. But that does not mean that he and our Order, if we decide to protect him, will not be in danger. James is right. Before long, Tom will miss Regulus." Dumbledore looked troubled. "The one Death Eater who came to us has already returned to Tom. As a respected member of Tom's Inner Circle, as one of Voldemort's Ten Commanders, as a spy for the Order of the Phoenix. Knowing what I know of this wizard, I am reasonably confident that Tom will never suspect him. Regulus Black is another story. Unless we protect him, he will die. He can't go back to Tom. He can't evade Tom and remain at large. He can't protect himself alone. Trained and powerful Aurors who have tried that have fallen to the Death Eaters. But once Regulus Black disappears, once Tom discovers he can find no trace of him...." Dumbledore's voice trailed off.

"Voldy'll know we've taken Regulus under our wing," Moody concluded. "And he'll come down on us harder than ever. He can't let it look as though any Death Eater with a few second thoughts can escape him by running to the Order of the Phoenix."

Dumbledore was silent for a few moments. "I have no right to decide for this second Death Eater on my own, as I decided for the first. We shall call a special meeting of the Order, Alastor, and put it before them. Let the entire Order vote on whether we ought to offer our protection to Regulus Black. Let the entire Order decide whether Regulus Black is worth the risk."

"Sirius, too?" James asked.

"No." Dumbledore gave him a weary smile. "Even I have not grown so merciless as that, I hope. Didn't I hear you and Sirius talking about a trip abroad he was going to take next week?"

"Yes. He's going to Bonn for ten days, on business for Gringott's."

Sirius was the Muggle liaison for Gringott's. A tricky business, representing the human face of a goblin-owned bank to the Muggles. A large part of Sirius's job was to keep the goblins under wraps: to make the Muggles believe Gringott's was an exclusive private bank, devoted to the protection of its clients' identities. The rest of his job was to court Muggle depositors. That was the lucrative part of the business, since Muggles held most of the world's wealth.

"The Order will meet next week, then," Dumbledore said. "I'll announce the meeting after Sirius leaves for Germany. The vote will be taken and the Order's decision made before he returns."

"I'm not sure he'll like that," James said.

"If he can't cast a vote, it's better if he doesn't know a vote's going to be taken," Moody said. "That way, he won't have to spend the week wondering which way his friends are leaning. Though I expect we'll vote to protect Regulus. I know I will. Maybe I wouldn't trust him with the Order's deepest secrets. And I doubt he's been the perfect little angel since he joined Voldemort's crew." Moody gave James a sharp look, as if he suspected James hadn't told him everything. "But I don't have the heart to leave him to the tender mercies of his Death Eater mates."

Avoiding Moody's eyes, James looked at Dumbledore.

"I cannot believe the Order will abandon Regulus," Dumbledore said, kindly enough. But something in his eyes told James to ask for no promises.

"I have several intimate enemies, Severus," the Dark Lord said. His eyes gleamed, flickering at irregular intervals like red fireflies. "The nearest and dearest of them all is Albus Dumbledore. I keep him very close to my heart. And I have learned that he is, above all, a wise man."

Snape was sunk in one of the softer armchairs in the study of Lucius Malfoy's London town house. He was facing the Lord, but saw nothing more than his elongated form and his flickering firefly eyes, for the light of the one candle on the table between them barely pierced the nighttime gloom.

"He summoned the Order and they came to him," the Lord went on. "Somewhere here, in this very city! If only the Headmaster were not his Order's Secret-Keeper! I could put an end to the Order of the Phoenix with one night's work. But never mind. Albus Dumbledore is, as I said, a wise man.

"But not infallible." Teeth flashed in a smile, white below the red of the Lord's eyes. "For I have learned what he would not have me know, that his Order voted to protect Regulus Black from me, to take him under its brave Phoenix wing. Just as Albus Dumbledore calculated they would do. Just as I knew they _must_ do, as soon I heard of this special meeting from one who, in my service, hangs on every word Albus Dumbledore says."

A question stirred in Snape's sluggish brain: should he ask who that one was? Wasn't that something he should try to find out for Albus Dumbledore?

No, how could he? When he was sated with his generous Lord's power, when his head swam with it, when his left arm still burned from his Lord's touch?

Power. He had drunk it in through the Dark Mark. It had surged like a flood tide in his veins and pounded in his head behind his eyes. He had felt as though he must burst from it, as though mere human flesh could not contain it.

Now he felt--how did he feel now? Back in control? Himself again? He could think, at least. More or less.

He could also feel the other of the two Gifts, the one he'd drunk in along with the power. The one that shifted in his stomach like a sickness about to come up, that unraveled his thoughts. He groped after their shredded ends, like a wandering and forgetful old man. An old man nearing death.

Death. Yes, that was it. That was what Dumbledore had called the Dark Lord's second Gift.

Nonsense, Snape thought. And if it wasn't, so what? All men died.

All but the Dark Lord. He didn't intend to die. Then again, he was, well--not quite a man.

Snape looked away from the eyes. But he still heard his Lord speaking.

"What Regulus doesn't understand, Severus, is that I don't wish to _punish_ him. I've known since Travers returned alone that something was wrong. And I know what that something is. I understand."

Of course he did. Snape could tell, just by the soothing sound of the Lord's voice.

"Regulus is young," the Dark Lord said. "The McKinnons were his first kill. Now, for the first time, he feels the heavy duty I place upon the shoulders of my Death Eaters. He wishes to drop his burden and flee. I quite understand."

So did Snape. Especially now that his head was clearing. The Lord wasn't looking. But nevertheless he made sure that a thick shroud of Occlumency was tucked around his magical heart, shielding Mother and Headmaster Dumbledore.

He couldn't quite think why Dumbledore was there. Mother was, though. That was what mattered.

"I don't want to hurt Regulus. I want to talk to him, to tell him I know what he's going through. How many of my Death Eaters have experienced their moments of doubt? _You_ know what I mean, Severus."

Snape's heart leapt to his throat. The last wisps of cloud in his mind abruptly disappeared. Quickly he cleared away the fear, too, before one of the two best Legilimentes in the world looked his way.

"Some call it a dark night of the soul," the Lord went on. "I call it the last, highest rung of the ladder. If you can step over it--if you can step beyond it--you are free." The Lord looked at him suddenly, the moment after Snape had banished the last of his fear. "It is a pity that you cannot experience that liberation, Severus. That even Regulus Black has attained the pinnacle of my service ahead of you." He sighed. "But you will insist on working at St. Mungo's, won't you?"

"It's a very good job, my Lord."

"It's not good for _me."_ The Lord sounded a bit peevish. "Having you surrounded by all those strong Healers. To say nothing of those golden-powered, highly-sensitive, Legilimency-trained Magical Examiners. Why, if you'd killed--if you had another's death sitting in your magical heart--someone like Constance Meed would pick it up in a moment."

"True. Unfortunately, I have my living to make."

"Yes, and where could you make it better than at St. Mungo's? I know. Besides, I'm sure some tidbits of information might fall your way there." The teeth appeared again in a brief smile. "After all, don't you work alongside James Potter's wife?

"But to return to Regulus," the Lord went on, sparing Snape the necessity of answering him. "Tomorrow morning, I'd like you to go to Grimmauld Place and speak to him for me. Tell him I understand. Ask him to come talk to me. I want to hear what's troubling him, I want to assuage his doubts. I want to do what I can to make this difficult time easier for him. I know how persuasive you can be--look how many witches and wizards you've recruited to my side! And I know Regulus respects you."

"Perhaps," Snape said. "But will his parents? It's been some time since the Snapes were socially equal to the Blacks."

"Ah, but that's why I'm sending Lucius along with you. He'll get you across the threshold of Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place. And once you're there, simply extend my invitation to Regulus Black. Then, you and Lucius will escort him here. I'll be waiting."

"And if he says no?"

"Unfortunately, Severus, I'm afraid I can't take no for an answer."

The Dark Lord's smile was gone. Snape saw nothing of him in the light of the guttering candle but two red eyes.


	5. Chapter Five

**Chapter Five**

With the shuddering of his innards that, for him, always accompanied the transition from the Muggle to the Magical world, Snape stepped with Lucius Malfoy from the fading neighborhood of Grimmauld Place to the front porch steps of the Victorian monstrosity at Number Twelve.

The house had walls of aged, smoke-eaten stone and a mansard roof. Between the third and fourth stories, Snape saw a marble string course of writhing snakes, their sinuous bodies intertwined. On the rooftop, a weathervane in the shape of a manticore spun in a sudden gust of wind.

Both Snape and Malfoy had their umbrellas up, for the wind drove the rain of a spring storm before it. Snape hung back a bit and allowed Malfoy to approach the massive black door with the silver serpent knocker.

A house elf answered Malfoy's knock. When the elf saw Malfoy, its mouth stretched in a toothy, obsequious grin.

"Lucius Malfoy, sir!"

"Kreacher." Malfoy was, as usual, all cool aristocracy. "Is Madame at home?"

Kreacher bowed so deeply his nose nearly touched the threshold. "For you, always, Lucius Malfoy, sir!" He straightened and eyed Snape, his huge eyes alight with suspicion.

"Master Apothecary Severus Snape," Malfoy said.

Snape came forward, his calling card in his outstretched hand. Kreacher dashed away and returned with a salver.

"I am sure Madame will condescend to notice a Snape," Malfoy said.

Snape, who was unused to house elves, could not remember seeing anything more ridiculous than the self-important, rag-clad Kreacher parading off into the gloom of Twelve Grimmauld Place, holding Snape's card aloft on the tray.

Presently Kreacher returned. "Madame Black will receive both gentlemen in the parlor."

Snape and Malfoy closed their umbrellas, shook them off and entered a hallway darker than the day outside. Kreacher took their cloaks and they leaned their umbrellas in an imposing troll-leg stand.

"One of Cousin Araminta's trophies," Lucius said, smiling down at the stand. "She wanted a mate for it: the leg of a full-grown Muggle male, to make an eclectically matching set. But the Dumbledore-Potter coterie in the Ministry always _would_ block her Muggle-hunting bill."

They followed Kreacher, who announced them to Madame Black and gestured them into a stuffy parlor heavy with velvet and brocade. The floors, the sideboard and the bookcases were polished cherrywood. More serpents coiled in the molded plaster of the ceiling, above the cherry molding in each corner of the room. Snape's and Lucius's footsteps were muffled in the pile of a rich Oriental rug. A fire blazed in the fireplace, overheating the room.

Madame Black sat as if enthroned in a wing chair near the hearth, receiving, Snape was sure, the full blast of the fire's heat. With one pale hand, she motioned them to a horsehair sofa opposite her and, as Snape saw with relief, a little further from the fireplace.

Snape sat down gingerly, acutely aware of a Black in a sixteenth-century ruff glaring down at him from a portrait. The same Black simpered cloyingly when her eyes lit on Lucius Malfoy.

Madame Black looked at both of them with the same regal air her sons always displayed, that attitude of knowing she ruled, by birthright, everything and everyone around her.

"Lucius," she said. "How are you? And poor Narcissa--how is she?"

"I am well, thank you, Aunt Althea," Malfoy replied. "And Narcissa is as well as can be expected, given her delicate condition. But I assure you, I am seeing to it that she obeys her midwife's orders to the letter."

"Ah, good," said Madame Black. "I was a bit delicate with Regulus myself. The other one never gave me a moment's trouble. Until _after_ he was born, that is."

Lucius murmured sympathetically, something to the effect that there was one in every family.

Madame Black cut him off coldly. "Forget him. I have."

"Done," Lucius said with an ironic little smile. "But I can't forget Regulus. Neither of us can. Narcissa can't help worrying about him, on top of all her other concerns. Bellatrix told her Regulus was unwell. That he's kept to his room for nearly a week."

"You have heard, then." Real worry filled Madame Black's eyes. "Regulus hardly ever comes downstairs, and only when he's sure we don't have guests. He won't leave the house at all. He won't speak to anyone but his father and me. And he won't tell us what's wrong."

"Is he ill?" Lucius asked. "In pain? Does he need a Healer? Master Snape here is an Apothecary at St. Mungo's. Perhaps he could recommend someone."

"Master Snape. I remember when your mother came out. And your father...." Madame Black's voice faded politely. She turned back to Lucius. "I'm certain Regulus isn't in physical pain. I'm his mother; I'd know. It's driving his father to distraction. Orion says there's something wrong at the center of Regulus's magical heart. My husband is sensitive, you know, and he was always very much attuned to Regulus. To both of them, actually, but Regulus is the only one who matters."

"Of course," Lucius said kindly. "It was when Narcissa heard that Regulus wouldn't see Bella. It troubled her, you know, Aunt Althea. Bella has always been a favorite with Regulus. Narcissa's the only one he loves better. Why, Narcissa was about to climb out of bed and come here herself. You can imagine how I felt, after her midwife had just told me that under no circumstances was I to allow anything to upset her. It was all I could do to get her to stay home as she's been ordered, and I could only do that by promising to come myself."

"You've always been a good friend to Regulus," said Madame Black.

"And so has Master Snape. Severus Snape." Lucius made a little bow toward Snape. "I hardly knew Regulus when he was in school, after all. But Severus was only two years ahead of him."

"Severus?" Finally Madame Black gave Snape a direct look. "Now I remember. You were in _his_ year. He and Regulus used to talk about you sometimes. He didn't like you much."

"Sirius hated me, Madame," Snape said. Then, on impulse, he added: "And I hated him."

Madame Black's eyes gleamed coldly. A slow smile spread across her face. "Then you are my friend."

"You will let us both approach Regulus, then, Madame?" Malfoy asked. "He is home, you said?"

"He's home. Locked up in his room. And if you, his friends, can get him to come out, it will be more than his mother and father have been able to do."

"Thank you, Madame." Malfoy rose and bowed to Madame Black. Snape followed suit.

"Thank _you_, Lucius," Madame Black said. "And good luck."

"Your instincts are excellent, Severus," Lucius said. He and Snape were climbing the stairs to Regulus's room, beneath a bizarre-looking row of stuffed house-elf heads mounted on the wall. "To tell Aunt Althea that you hate her first-born son, the heir of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black, is to tell Aunt Althea exactly what she likes to hear."

"Come, Regulus," Lucius said in soothing, honeyed tones. Spell-tones, Snape thought. "You can let _us_ in. We're your friends."

"Who's 'we?'" Black said truculently, from the other side of his locked bedroom door.

"Good heavens, Regulus! Well. There's me, Lucius Malfoy. Your friend from way back. And your cousin, now. Your family. Don't forget that," Lucius said.

"Yeah, fine. And who else is there?"

"Severus Snape. You remember him from school, don't you?" Lucius paused. "He's one of us. You know that, too."

A minute passed in silence. Then Black said, "I don't want to talk to anyone. I told you, I'm not feeling well."

Lucius nodded to Snape. Snape took his wand from his pocket and cast the Shroud of Silence over them. Now they could speak freely, with no fear that the elf or Madame Black would overhear them.

"We come from the Lord, Regulus. He's missed you, but he isn't angry with you. All he wants is to talk."

Another silence. "Later. When I'm feeling better. All right?"

Lucius bit his lip in exasperation. His spell-tones were having no effect. Black was easily throwing them off, if he noticed them at all. But then, Snape had never known a Malfoy who was stronger than any Black. Not even one recently enriched, as Snape himself was, with the Lord's own power.

But why did Lucius think he needed to use magic at all?

"Lucius is telling the truth, Regulus ," Snape said. "The Lord doesn't want to punish you. He wants to understand. He told me so himself. I believe he wants to forgive you."

Black said nothing.

Yet Snape felt an advantage, and he pressed it. "They all lie about him. The Ministry, the Daily Prophet, the Order of the Phoenix. You've seen that by now. You, who have stood in his presence with Lucius and me, who have received the gift of his power from his own heart, as we have."

More silence. Snape glanced at Lucius.

Lucius was looking at him with wonder. "You sound like a true believer, Severus," he murmured. "Like Bella."

Snape turned back to Regulus's blank and solid bedroom door. "Let us in. All we want is to talk to you."

Another couple of moments passed. Then, with a scraping of the latch, the door creaked open a couple of inches. Regulus peered out at them.

"All right," he whispered croakily, as if he was at the end of his strength. "Come in."

Regulus's bedroom was a shambles. The bed was unmade, his clothes were left where he'd dropped them and books were left lying open, face down on the dresser, on the bedside tables, or simply flung on the floor. After Lucius and Snape had walked in, Regulus pushed a tray piled high with dirty dishes into the hallway before closing and latching the door.

"I don't want that nasty elf, that Kreacher, coming anywhere near me," he said. "He's a backstabbing, double-dealing piece of work. Sirius was right about him."

"But you're a member of Kreacher's family," Snape said. He looked around, wondering where in the wreckage he might find a seat.

"What's that matter?" Regulus snapped. "Oh, he does what I tell him. But he mutters. Everything he hears, everything he sees, everything he thinks. He muttered about Sirius all the time."

Lucius picked up a book and a wadded, wrinkled shirt from an armchair. He set them delicately on the floor. Then he brushed breadcrumbs off the upholstery and sat down. Snape, watching him, decided to remain standing.

"Don't worry about Kreacher," Lucius said. "He won't dare remove that Shroud of Silence from the young master's door."

"Shroud of Silence?" Regulus's eyes darted around the room.

"It's not in here, of course. It's outside, where it will do some good." Lucius smiled pityingly. "Poor Regulus. You_ are_ distraught."

"Well, why shouldn't I be!"

"Because the Lord knows your doubts and fears?" Lucius said. "But, Regulus, it's no crime to have doubts. It's no crime to feel fear."

Snape looked down at the floor as Lucius spoke, at another Eastern rug. The same serpentine theme he'd seen through the rest of the Black house was repeated here. This time the snakes slithered through a landscape of overlarge, strangely-colored ferns and flowers. Snape, who, as a Potioner, thought he knew his botany, found he couldn't identify the plant species.

He looked up at the walls. No ancestral Blacks stared back at him. Regulus had turned their portraits to face the wall.

Snape looked at Regulus. Regulus, seated on his rumpled bed, was gazing at Lucius with a glimmer of hope in his eyes.

"Feelings don't matter," Snape said. "It's what you do about them that counts. Why shouldn't the Lord hear your doubts and answer them? You haven't harmed him. Have you?"

"You'd never be so foolish as that, Regulus. Would you?" Lucius asked softly.

Regulus's eyes moved from Lucius to Snape. The hope in them had suddenly disappeared. They held no expression at all.

He was a Black. The Blacks were clever and very powerful. They knew how to keep their secrets.

Along with Occlumency, the Lord had taught Snape enough Legilimency to give him advance warning when another witch or wizard planned an attack on his mind. He'd need that warning, the Lord had said, when he returned to St. Mungo's, into the midst of the best Magical Examiners in Great Britain.

_"Keep eye contact, Severus,"_ the Dark Lord had said during his lessons. _"The eyes_ _are the window to the soul. The Muggle who said that was wiser than he knew."_

Holding Regulus's eyes, Snape took a step forward. "So long as you haven't gone over to the Dark Lord's enemies, so long as you haven't betrayed him, you're safe."

"He can forgive anything but treachery," Lucius said.

"But treachery he can never forgive," said Snape.

"I haven't betrayed the Lord!" Regulus cried. "How can you think such a thing!"

Snape broke off his gaze and looked down at the rug, at the snakes sliding their way through the strange ferns and flowers.

He didn't want to know whether Regulus was lying. If Regulus was lying, then taking him back to the Lord would be delivering him to certain death.

_"You can never kill for Voldemort.... You must not do it,"_ Dumbledore had commanded Snape.

_"I've _never_ killed!"_ Snape had insisted to Moody.

Let the Lord discover Regulus Black's secrets. It was none of Snape's affair, was it? He was one Death Eater, one soldier in the Lord's army....

And in Dumbledore's army, the Order of the Phoenix.

_"You have a talent for Occlumency, Severus,"_ the Dark Lord had said at the beginning of their lessons. _"All you need to do is learn to clear your mind."_

_"Clear your mind, Severus," _Dumbledore had said, before entering Snape's magical heart to dispel the Lord's death and remove his power. _"That will make it easier for you."_

Snape looked up at Regulus, his mind clear of Legilimency, of all magic. Why had he thought he'd needed to use magic at all?

"You're very lucky, then, Regulus," he said. "If you have not worked against the Lord, if you have not betrayed him, then you're innocent. It is a wonderful thing to be innocent, don't you see? The innocent need fear no one."

"Would that we were all innocent," Lucius said unctuously.

Snape did not react. His mind was clear. The second chamber of his heart, that held Mother and Dumbledore, was buried under Occlumency, so deeply hidden he hardly felt it.

Regulus, however, looked sharply at Lucius.

"If you are innocent, then come with us to the Lord," Snape said. "He's missed you. He's asked for you."

Regulus didn't answer at once. Though his face looked worn, his eyes, fixed on Lucius, were bright and alert. Snape remembered hearing gossip, perhaps from Lucius himself, to the effect that Sirius Black was golden-powered, that Dumbledore had even asked Sirius's parents if he could apprentice Sirius in Examination.

Did Regulus share his brother's talent? Was he a Golden, too?

If he was, it didn't seem to bother Lucius. He looked straignt back at Regulus with a half-smile on his face.

"You'll get used to the killing, Regulus," Lucius said. "Everyone does, in the end. It's a very common complaint, actually, the inability to stomach killing. I never suffered from it myself. My digestion's quite good."

"The Lord loves best those who will kill for him," Snape said. "He knows their loyalty can't be questioned. They are bound to him forever. I tell you, you have nothing to fear from him. Don't stay away any longer. Come with us."

"Do you know, Severus," Regulus said, still looking at Lucius. "I've thought it over. And I think I'd rather stay home."

"Do you know, Regulus," Lucius said. "I think you'd better come."

"No, thanks, Cousin." Regulus's voice was a notch higher, a bit more tense, but steady. "I'll stay here."

Lucius rose and stood beside Snape. "Afraid that's not in the cards, old man. You see, the Lord said he just couldn't take no for an answer."

Regulus's hand went to his robes. He was faster than Lucius, but Snape had his wand out before either of them.

_"Expelliarmus!"_ Snape cried. Regulus's wand flew to him. He caught it and slid it beneath his robes, into his coat pocket.

Snape and Lucius then stood side-by-side in front of the bedroom door, pointing their wands at Regulus.

"Now, really, Regulus. Don't you think you'd better come along?" Lucius said.

Regulus stared at him, angry and defiant, looking exactly, Snape thought, like Sirius on the verge of earning a detention.

"Get out of my house!" Regulus shouted. He strode to the fireplace and snatched the Floo powder down from the mantel. "Before I call the Aurors! Before my father has both of you thrown into Azkaban!"

Lucius clicked his tongue in mock exasperation. "You'd better persuade him, Severus. You know how clumsy I am. I might end up hurting dear little Cousin Regulus."

Snape stepped forward. "You shall come with us to the Dark Lord," he said quietly, as Regulus was thrusting his hand into the powder box. _"Imperio."_

Regulus Black would obey. His insolent defiance, just like his brother's, would submit to the power culled from the places in Snape's nature hidden under darkness, for Regulus Black, like every wizard in the world but one, was Snape's inferior.

Regulus struggled, though. The powder box slid from his hand to the floor, spilling Floo powder over the hearthrug. He stared at Snape, terrified, his mouth working. His golden power wrestled with the black Snape had called forth from his magical heart, black woven through and through with brilliant threads of red, like spun rubies. Lord Voldemort's power, uniquely his, the only purely red power subsisting in any wizard alive, combined with Snape's power. It gave Snape a strength he'd never known in the old days, when he'd been alone, before he'd met the Lord, before the Dark Mark had joined him to scores of brothers and sisters.

Regulus struggled. His breath came hard and fast, and sweat shone on his pale face. Snape, smiling, delighting in the test of his strength, fought back. "Come with us, Black. _Imperio."_

Like all the Blacks, Regulus was strong. But today, Snape was stronger. And, unlike Regulus Black, he had not abandoned Lord Voldemort. So Lord Voldemort did not abandon him.

Thus, the moment came when Regulus Black's golden power fled the red-seamed black power of Severus Snape and retreated into Regulus's magical heart. Regulus's face went slack. He spoke in a soft, dreamy voice. "All right, Severus, I'll come. Take me to our Lord."

Madame Black must have heard them descending the stairs, for the parlor door opened and she came hurrying out to meet them at the front door.

"Regulus, you've come down! Are you feeling better, then?" she asked.

"I'm fine, Mother," Regulus said calmly.

Snape stood close to Regulus while Lucius wandered to a window and lifted the heavy drape covering it. "Look, the rain's ended. And the sky's clearing. A walk to the Salazar Club and a couple of drinks there will set him up nicely, don't you think, Severus?"

"Yes, I do," Snape said.

"Excellent!" said Lucius. "We'll give you a call, Aunt Althea, if we're going to be late for supper. Come along, Regulus."

Snape stared at Regulus. "Come along."

Regulus nodded docilely. The three wizards left the house. They walked into the street, three abreast, arm-in-arm, Regulus in the middle, between Lucius and Snape.

They crossed the street into the rain-soaked, grassy common opposite Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place. Lucius gripped Regulus's right arm, Snape his left.

To a casual observer, the three of them looked like brothers, Snape supposed. Or friends. Not that Snape would have known. He had neither brothers, nor, at the moment, any friends.

"Excellent work, Severus," Lucius murmured. _"Excellent._ The Lord will be very pleased."

Snape did not answer. He was concentrating on keeping Black's powerful will locked inside his Imperius Curse.

"We'll want to Apparate back to my house. The Lord is there, eagerly awaiting the arrival of dear Cousin Regulus." Lucius smiled down at Black. Black, not responding, stared blankly ahead.

"Not here," Snape said. The rainclouds were scudding off and the sun was shining, its light reflecting off puddles on the sidewalks and in the road. Number Twelve had disappeared into the Magical world, and now Grimmauld Place was crawling with Muggles: people coming out on to the stoops of the run-down apartment houses and emerging from the grimy little shops. A bus lumbered past, loaded to capacity with passengers.

"Oh, no, not here. I know just the secluded alley we'll want. Narcissa and I use it all the time on our visits to Aunt Althea and Uncle Orion."

It had to be better than trying to hold Black under the Imperius Curse while they walked back to the park north of Grimmauld Place, where Snape and Lucius had Apparated in. Contending with Black's power was beginning to wear on Snape. He felt nauseous and lightheaded. He was out of practice. He hadn't cast an Unforgivable Curse since before he'd confessed to--

Snape broke off the thought. He was practiced at that.

They'd crossed the common and were walking past a greengrocer's with a "Closed" sign hanging in a flyspecked window.

"Here we are," Lucius said.

The alley, veiled in shadows, lay between the greengrocer's and an abandoned warehouse with boarded-up windows. Snape and Lucius led Regulus in.

It was like walking into the night. The sun shining outside the alley made absolutely no headway inside. It took Snape a moment to get used to the darkness, before he saw the ancient, cobbled way, still slick from the rain, and a couple of dented, empty garbage cans against the wall of the warehouse.

Lucius stopped. He released Regulus and backed a couple of steps away from him.

"No, Lucius, I need your help," Snape said. "We both need to hold him. I can't Apparate him alone while keeping him under the Imperius Curse. He's too strong."

"No need to Apparate. Not yet, anyway," Lucius said in a cold, quiet voice. He drew his wand. "Stand aside, Severus."

Snape looked from Lucius to Regulus. Regulus's face was still slack. But his eyes were alive again. And they were filled with fear.

Snape glanced quickly back at Lucius. The coldness had spread to Malfoy's eyes, had robbed his face of all expression. Distracted, filled with disquiet, Snape let his grip loosen just slightly on Regulus Black's arm.

Suddenly, yanking his arm away, Black broke free of Snape's grasp and of Snape's Imperius Curse.

"Lucius, please!" Regulus's voice was shaking. Trembling, he backed up a step, then whirled on Snape. "Severus, please don't let him!"

Finally Snape understood. "Lucius! The Lord said we were to bring Black back so he could talk to him--"

Black broke and ran toward the far end of the alley.

_"Avada Kedavra!" _Lucius Malfoy cried.

Brilliant green light flared in the dismal alley, illuminating mossy brick walls and filthy, broken cobblestones. Snape jumped aside. Even so, the spell sideswiped him, throwing him between the garbage cans. His back struck the warehouse wall. His head snapped back, and he felt it crack smartly against the bricks. Pain shot through his skull. The alley spun lazily around him. Dazed, he slid to his seat on the soaked cobblestones. And he watched Lucius Malfoy.

With a cold, calm look on his face, Malfoy approached the prone form of his wife's cousin, Regulus Black. Shadows dimmed them both, for the brilliant light was gone and the gloom had returned.

Lucius nudged Regulus in the ribs with the toe of his boot. No response. He bent over Regulus, lifted Regulus's head by the hair and stared into his face for a moment. He released Regulus's hair and let his head drop to the ground again.

Lucius straightened. Still looking down at Regulus, he smiled briefly. "There's a good lad," he murmured. He took a step back and lifted his wand over Regulus's still form.

_"Morsmordre!" _Malfoy cried.

Snape couldn't see the sky. But the Dark Mark that shot from Lucius's wand was so luridly green that it would stand out even against the clear blue of a rainwashed, sunlit spring day. The Muggles will see it, he thought groggily.

"Lucius!" Snape croaked.

"Ah, Severus!" Lucius pocketed his wand and hurried over. "I'm so sorry. I didn't have time to warn you as I ought to have done. But Black was getting away." He bent and offered a hand to Snape. "Are you all right?"

Snape took Lucius's hand and got unsteadily to his feet. Still swaying a bit, he stared at Regulus. Regulus lay face down on the cobbled alleyway, his hair a tangled mess, his arms stretched above his head and his fingers slightly curled, as if he were reaching for something which had just eluded his grasp.

"He's dead?" Snape said.

"I should think so. He was less than twenty feet away when I hit him. I'm not as good a duelist as you, but my aim's not _that_ bad." Lucius looked closer, into Snape's face, then gave a short laugh. "Oh, Severus, don't look at me like that! I was only joking."

"Why did you kill him?" Snape asked. "The Lord told me he wanted to talk to Regulus."

"Of course that's what he told _you. _You weren't to know the real plan, that I was to kill Regulus as soon as you'd got him safely outside his house. You're Chief Apothecary on your shift at St. Mungo's. You might be called in at any moment to cover absences at the hospital, where you mix with all those prying Examiners. Who knew what they might pick up from you?"

Snape stared at him, aghast.

Lucius stared back. He was no longer smiling. "The Lord says you're unable to hide from the Examiners the mere knowledge that we've decided to get rid of somebody. Why not, I wonder? You hide the rest well enough."

Lucius shrugged. "None of my affair, I suppose." Then, with a smile, he looked down at Regulus. "We all have our own particular value to the Lord, don't we? I know mine. And I imagine you know yours."

Snape averted his eyes from Lucius and Regulus. Staring at the ground, he took a moment to clear his mind.

Then he looked up. "We have to get out of here, Lucius," he said, calmly enough. "The Muggles will see the Dark Mark. They'll be here any moment."

"Of course." Lucius stepped away from Black's dead body. "Let's Apparate home, shall we?"


	6. Chapter Six

**Chapter Six**

"Go right in, Chief," the landlord of the Leaky Cauldron said when Moody arrived. "The Professor said he'd be a few minutes."

"Same parlor?" Moody asked.

"Professor Dumbledore maintains a standing reservation. I see to it that the room is clear whenever he needs it."

That had to cost the Headmaster a Knut or two, Moody thought. "Send me back a pint of ale, will you, Tom?"

"Certainly, sir."

Moody made his way back to the cozy, dark parlor, and the ale occupied some fifteen minutes of his time before Dumbledore arrived.

Time enough to ruminate over the Order's latest failure. Moody hadn't had the time yesterday, after a couple of Muggle kids had discovered Regulus Black's body in a alley off Grimmauld Place. The boys had seen the Dark Mark floating above the alley and had gone in expecting to find friends of theirs setting off some new kind of fireworks.

There'd been fireworks, all right. A team of Aurors and Obliviators had spent all day putting them out. Moody himself had spent the day at Grimmauld Place, at the scene and at Number Twelve.

He'd spent much of the night at the morgue, with Althea and Orion Black. Before they'd identified their son Regulus, during the identification, and afterward.

Sirius Black was due in from Germany that night. Moody had planned on going with Sirius and his school friends--all decent chaps in a tight spot, even the runty one, Pettigrew--to Grimmauld Place, to take Regulus into protection.

Orion would meet Sirius instead, for the first time in years, to tell his estranged elder son that his beloved younger son was dead.

Bit of a change in plans, that.

Dumbledore appeared at the parlor door with Apothecary Snape. After they'd stepped over the threshold, Snape snatched his hand away from Dumbledore and let it drop to his side. It looked to Moody as though he had been leaning on Dumbledore's arm.

He needed somebody's arm, Moody thought. The fellow had been pale and skinny enough a week ago. Today he looked like death warmed over.

Dumbledore closed the parlor door. Then he pulled a chair out for Snape, who, moving slower than a wizard much older than Dumbledore, sat down. Dumbledore sat down beside him, across from Moody.

"I'll stand you a beer, Snape," Moody said, feeling sorry for him. "Though maybe it's a dose of your own potion you need."

"No, thank you," Snape said. His voice was soft, but steady.

"An excellent suggestion, Alastor. I have already given Severus a potion. And after we are done here, I shall accompany him home," Dumbledore said.

Moody looked from one to the other. Dumbledore's expression was quietly unreadable. Snape, trembling slightly, stared at the tabletop.

"Glad to hear it," Moody said. He drank the last of his ale and set the tankard down. "So. Our first biweekly report."

"Severus will give it," Dumbledore said. "But allow him some time. We have just come from St. Mungo's, where I removed a large infusion of Voldemort's power from his magical heart."

Moody leaned back in his chair and folded his arms across his chest. "I've got time."

Snape took his time, and not only because he was worn out. He told a convoluted story in a halting voice, of how he and Lucius Malfoy had gone to Grimmauld Place and very nearly talked Regulus Black into leaving the safety of his home and returning with them to Lord Voldemort.

Lucius Malfoy. Moody stifled a longing sigh. What he wouldn't give to be able to hand Lucius Malfoy over to Barty Crouch, to see the look on both their faces.

"But Black wouldn't come with us," Snape said in his strange, subdued voice.

Then he fell silent. Dumbledore let a good two minutes of that silence pass.

Snape and Malfoy were probably among the last people to see Black alive. So, following Dumbledore's lead, Moody waited in patient silence for Snape to continue.

"And what did you do about that?" Dumbledore finally asked.

The coolness in his voice startled Moody. He'd grown accustomed, in their last meeting, to hearing Dumbledore gently urge the truth out of Snape. This time, the kindly gaze and paternal tones were gone.

"I cast the Imperius Curse on Black," Snape said, almost inaudibly. Raising his head, he looked into Dumbledore's face. "I swear to you, Headmaster, if I'd known Malfoy meant to kill him--"

Moody sat up. "What's this?"

"Please believe me, I didn't know!"

There were people whom pleading didn't suit. Snape, his face gray and sweating, his voice cracking, was one of those people.

"I believe you, Severus," Dumbledore said wearily. "Please go on. Chief Moody is waiting."

Snape dropped his eyes again. "The Lord told me all he wanted was to talk to Black. Malfoy said the same. I had no reason to doubt either of them. So when we couldn't talk Black into coming with us, I used Imperius to persuade him."

"Wait up, mate. You're not supposed to be casting Unforgivable Curses. You're on our side now, remember?" Moody said.

"Malfoy wasn't strong enough to control Black. We both knew that."

Moody leaned forward, resting his elbows on the table. He stared at the curtain of black hair across from him.

"And did you have fun?" he asked.

Snape looked up. "What do you mean?"

But Moody saw the shock of comprehension in Snape's eyes. "You know what I mean. That feeling all three of the Unforgivable Curses give you. You own the other bloke, body and soul. You can command him and he won't object. You can torture him and he can't fight back. You want him dead, you lift your wand, you say a couple of words and _pouf!" _Moody waved his hands. "He's dead. Wonderful feeling, isn't it? Better than sex."

Snape stared at him. "I expect you know, don't you?"

Moody stared back. "Actually, I don't. Though sometimes I'd like to. So tell me, what's better? A great fuck? Or casting an Unforgivable Curse?"

"Casting an Unforgivable Curse," said Snape.

With an explosive sigh, Moody leaned back. He shook his head. He looked at Dumbledore and gestured to Snape. "And you say you _trust_ him!"

"The only thing better is taking the Lord's power," Snape said. "And eating his death."

His voice was calm. And Moody, jerking around to look at him, saw a cold, steady glint in his eyes.

"It is what you want to hear," Snape said.

"It is what you must say, Severus, so long as you believe it," Dumbledore said, equally calmly.

The glint left Snape's eyes. He turned slowly to Dumbledore. "I do believe it, while he is rewarding me. But not after. Or why would I be here?"

"Do you want to give up?" Dumbledore asked.

And no wonder he asked it, Moody thought. Snape looked desolate.

"No." Snape rubbed his eyes exhaustedly, like an Auror coming off a long and dangerous shift. "I can't."

"I agree," Dumbledore said. "You can't."

Snape didn't answer. He didn't even look up. He put his elbows on the table and rested his head in his hands.

Dumbledore watched him in silence for a few moments. Then, sighing, he pulled his watch out of his pocket. He peered at its dozen hands and its spinning planets.

"It's late," Dumbledore said. "I'm sure you'd like to go home, Severus. And I need to be getting back to Hogwarts. End of term, you know. O.W.Ls. N.E.W.Ts. Hiring new staff for the next year." He slipped the watch back into his pocket and got to his feet. "I've an interview tomorrow. A new Divination teacher." He sighed again. "An absurd subject, Divination. For the most part." He looked down at Moody. "May I ask Tom to send you in some supper, Alastor?"

Moody rose, too. "No, thanks. I'll have a sandwich at the office. Parchment-work."

"Severus?" Dumbledore said gently.

Snape lowered his hands and looked up at Dumbledore. Then without a word, he stood up and went through the parlor door into the bar.

Moody laid a hand on Dumbledore's arm and cocked his head toward the open door. "You sure he's all right?" he muttered.

"No, he's not all right," Dumbledore said. "But I think he'll manage. And the Order needs him."

He was looking after Snape as he spoke. Like he was looking at a heavy load, Moody thought. Some burden he wasn't sure he had the strength to carry.

Dumbledore followed Snape into the bar. Moody looked through the parlor door at them, at Dumbledore laying his hand carefully on Snape's shoulder, saying something to him Moody couldn't hear.

Then Moody followed, too.

THE END


End file.
